Sam Altman says the AI industry has done a terrible job of communicating the benefits of the technology and is now exposed to a backlash, after local opposition blocked or delayed 75 data centre projects worth about $130B in a single quarter. In Europe the binding constraint is grid capacity, with Denmark holding roughly 60GW of queued projects against a 7GW peak demand.
Sam Altman says the AI industry has done a terrible job of explaining what the technology is for. He told Bloomberg Television that the failure has left developers exposed to a growing backlash, Bloomberg reported.
“I think we have done a bad job ourselves, maybe better than some others, worse than some others“, the OpenAI chief executive said. People rightly get afraid when they feel AI leaders may not want them to have more power and autonomy, he added.
The backlash has a figure attached. At least 75 data centre projects worth about $130B were blocked or delayed by local opposition in the first three months of this year.
Data Center Watch compiled that count. The quarter came close to the total for all of 2025. Those are American projects.
